Adi the friendly alien lives in a space station, accompanied by a space pet and a robot. While Adi talks or comments on your actions, background animations invite you to click on “learning environments” - the observatory, quizzes, current affairs, nature and so on.

You buy into this series at the appropriate level for Years 3 to 6. Children can create their own room-within-a-room from five designs, and save their own artwork or diary entries, constructed rom built-in graphics and word-processing programs.

There are games, too, but access has to be earned through work done in space stations or virtual classes, available only through Internet access in a safe environment that also offers a chat room. I particularly like the international club, where children can write in French, Spanish or German.

The space stations contain English and maths, with revision exercises and well-explained lessons, and optional extension exercises. The activities are not too long, follow the national curriculum and concentrate on areas in which children have the most problems. Great for home and classroom use, this would be excellent for school computer clubs.